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Quantitative reactive cysteinome profiling reveals a functional link between ferroptosis and proteasome-mediated degradation

Cell Death & Differentiation volume 30, pages 125–136 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Ferroptosis is a unique type of cell death that is hallmarked with the imbalanced redox homeostasis as triggered by iron-dependent lipid peroxidation. Cysteines often play critical roles in proteins to help maintain a healthy cellular environment by dynamically switching between their reduced and oxidized forms, however, how the global redox landscape of cysteinome is perturbed upon ferroptosis remains unknown to date. By using a quantitative chemical proteomic strategy, we systematically profiled the dynamic changes of cysteinome in ferroptotic cells and identified a list of candidate sites whose redox states are precisely regulated under ferroptosis-inducing and rescuing conditions. In particular, C106 of the protein/nucleic acid deglycase DJ-1 acts as an intriguing sensor switch for the ferroptotic condition, whose oxidation results in the disruption of its interaction with the 20S proteasome and leads to a marked activation in the proteasome system. Our chemoproteomic profiling and associated functional studies reveal a novel functional link between ferroptosis and the proteasome-mediated protein degradation. It also suggests proteasome as a promising target for developing treatment strategies for ferroptosis-related diseases.

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Fig. 1: Quantitative profiling of the perturbed cysteinome in ferroptosis.
Fig. 2: Cys106 of DJ-1 is involved in regulation of ferroptosis.
Fig. 3: C106 of DJ-1 regulates the interaction with proteasome during ferroptosis.
Fig. 4: Release of 20S proteasome from DJ-1 accelerates the proteolytic process in ferroptosis.
Fig. 5: Oxidation of C106 disrupts DJ-1’s interaction with the 20S proteasome.

Data availability

The proteomics data (ID: PXD029874) has been deposited at ProteomeXchange. Full and uncropped western blots can be found in Supplementary Materials. Request for the data and materials that support the findings of this study should be addressed to C.W at chuwang@pku.edu.cn.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Computing Platform of the Center for Life Science for supporting the LC-MS/MS proteomics data analysis. We gratefully acknowledge Prof. Jing Yang at National Center for Protein Sciences for generously providing the DiaAlk probes and advice on the assay to identify sulfinylation. We thank Dr. Nan Chen for providing the DYn-2 and IAyne probes. We thank Prof. Wensheng Wei at Peking University for providing plasmids for making DJ-1 knockout. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21925701, No.91953109 and No. 92153301) to CW.

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  1. Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Yankun Wang & Chu Wang

  2. Synthetic and Functional Biomolecules Center, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Chu Wang

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CW conceived the project and supervised the study. YW conducted the experiments. YW and CW analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript together.

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Correspondence to Chu Wang.

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Wang, Y., Wang, C. Quantitative reactive cysteinome profiling reveals a functional link between ferroptosis and proteasome-mediated degradation. Cell Death Differ 30, 125–136 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41418-022-01050-8

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